In line with my recent post that wanted to (not) define my political position in life, what follows is another similar rambling about the idea of progress, and basically about my not being able to define my own opinions, as they seem to fluctuate and glide like clouds or birds.

There's a lot of misunderstanding around on the use and meanings of the word 'progress'.
For many, 'progress' is one thing with 'evolution' and those are the ones who, although preaching their devotion to Darwin, seem to have completely misunderstood the essence of Darwin's thought. Evolution is not a form of progress, it is a form of adaptation. As such, it is completely neutral. That's why it should not be used politically or ideologically: even in cultural terms, evolution could mean for a species' society a downgrade of cleverness, sensitivity, ingenuity and overall abilities if only the environment wanted such an adaptation: in scientific terms this would still be called 'evolution'. In fact there is no opposite to the word 'evolution' in Darwin's world. Every major scientific achievement in the study of evolution proved that there isn't even such a thing in Nature as a linear progress from simplicity to complexity, but a mere 'poking around' of vital forms in all directions.

So what 'progress' is instead? The way I see it, progress is something much less objective or natural (although everything is 'natural', from a leaf to a tire) than evolution: it is a philosophical or social concept which is totally dependent on the point of view of someone who stands in the middle of it or on the brink of it.
Considering the land covered from 'there' to 'here' I can see a path as a progress, first of all because my point of view is limited (whether 'there' is in the past or in the future, there's a good chance that my perception of it is very lacunous), second because 'here to there' is just a blink of the eye in Nature's world, and the effects of that blink of the eye can be totally erased by the effects of the following blink.
To acknowledge this might just mean not a refusal to go on and try to better the world we live in (from our point of view of course), but that our worshiping of 'progress', from health to athletics to computers and cars and weather control could be less neurotic, rhetoric or hypnotizing: and possibly less focused on everything that just "grows" and gets "faster" or "stronger", since one should know by instinct that those are all very relative and not necessarily 'good' (less destructive) achievements for our species or planet (that one could want because they are 'thrilling', but not because they are a 'progress').

Just like with politics, when I think about progress I am ambivalent and wishy-washy. I want emancipation and education for all, and yet the way I see it the concept of progress can ruin many things. I find myself speaking in terms of 'decline', and 'decadence' of many things that I imagine or know were better in the past, and still I know that this 'decline' isn't any less relative and dependent on my personal point of view than any idea of 'progress'.
For example, the idea of a progress or decline of the arts (which I myself advocated so many times) is a gigantic foolishness: there is no such thing as a progress of the arts, because arts always go to the origins (I am eager to go into this in another post or in the comments).
Arts either exist or do not exist, end of story. My inability to be fulfilled or thrilled by new forms of art is just a problem I have.
The progress of human society toward democracy (or socialism, or whatever you want) is also another incredibly limited idea, since peaceful or extremely educated societies existed also in the past and nonetheless they are dust to dust now (because societies are also forms of adaptation and not ideas).
Science is certainly always making progress: but even there many could argue about the directions science has taken, lead on as it is by military technologies or pharmaceutical empires or corporations.

So to sum up this is the thing with the idea of progress I deal with in my mind: it is needed and yet it is always inexact and relativistic and disappointing. It is often used as a ideological tool against or in favor of something and it can't be split into parts and observed scientifically.
It is a veil that doesn't help me to see anything better.
More importantly, it is the gloom mark left on our bodies and minds by the long story of illusions and delusions of all those who once walked this planet, knowing of the ways of the world just little as we do.